LUANDA, Angola -- It's Sunday morning in Luanda, and the open-air market known as Plaza Congolesa is abuzz with activity as shoppers squeeze past stalls crammed full of goods of every kind.The goods are organized in careful order, with produce and meat stalls in one busy section, imported liquors a few rows away and electronic goods near the far end of the market. This is the Macy's of open-air African markets. It has everything from every part of the world, thanks to Angola's busy port, which receives imported goods from across the globe to compensate for the collapse in industry at home.

Upscale women's boutique White House Black Market said it is opening at Harbor East next month, two years after it moved its flagship store from downtown Baltimore. The retailer, which specialized in black and white apparel and shoes, is expected to open at the corner of Aliceanna and Harbor East Circle on Apr. 28. White House Black Market opened its first location at Baltimore's Harborplace at the Inner Harbor in 1985. But it closed the store two years ago because it said it wasn't doing as much business as it had liked.

By Ken Silverstein and Judy Pasternak and Ken Silverstein and Judy Pasternak,SPECIAL TO THE SUN | March 9, 2003

WASHINGTON - A few weeks ago, a retired American intelligence officer was asked over lunch about the availability on the black market of portable shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, which government officials fear terrorists might use against civilian airliners. The retired officer, who works for a private weapons business, called his secretary on a cellular phone and asked for the phone number of an East European arms broker. He dialed the broker, who picked up after a few rings.

Lisa Kurts works out five days a week, eats right and stays out of the sun. Her beauty regimen gets more complicated from there, with injections, creams and prescription medication — much of it aimed at enhancing the beauty of her eyes. "Your eyes stand out," said Kurts, 44, of Millers Island, a regular at BE Lifestyle Luxury Medspa in Towson who uses high-end eye creams and a prescription eyelash-growing medication and has had Botox and Juvederm injections around the eyes. "I try to make them look as young as possible.

CHICAGO - In the baby food aisle at the Dominick's supermarket in Elmhurst, Ill., small signs offer an apology: "Due to high theft, all powder formula is located in the pharmacy. When the pharmacy is closed, please ask at the service desk." At superstores and grocery markets across the nation, shoplifters have been zeroing in on powdered baby formula, sometimes clearing shelves of dozens of cans at a time. The thefts are the latest sign of a surprising black market in the innocent yet expensive white powder that comes packed in cans.

WASHINGTON - In the clandestine world of international arms smuggling, the real power is not in the payload of a surface-to-air missile or the deadly effectiveness of a rocket-propelled grenade. In the subterranean network of weapons dealers and smugglers, it is money that matters more than country, more than ideology, more than human life. "I would say that unfortunately in today's world, if you have the money, you probably can get the weapon," said Brian Jenkins, a senior adviser to the RAND Corp.

WASHINGTON -- The federal government launched a nationwide attack yesterday against a growing U.S. black market in Freon, a banned air-conditioning chemical that threatens the ozone layer but is being smuggled in large quantities along well-established routes of drug traffickers.The imported material, purchased for as little as $2 a pound and fetching as much as 10 times that on the black market, has been brought in from Russia, China, India, Australia and Britain, among other locations, and shipped through Mexico and Canada, officials said.

Maryland Rep. Helen D. Bentley has taken aim at a growing international black market in bear parts with a bill to ban the export of the animals' gall bladders, which are highly prized as an Asian folk remedy.Mrs. Bentley, a Republican, said yesterday that she hoped Congress would stop what she called the "senseless slaughter."The bill she introduced Wednesday puts her at odds with the Bush administration, which opposed a worldwide restriction on trade in black bears adopted this week by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, meeting in Kyoto, Japan.

WASHINGTON -- Partly in response to growing fears of terrorist attacks on U.S. civilian aircraft, the CIA requested $55 million this month for buying back hundreds of the highly efficient Stinger anti-aircraft missiles that the United States gave to Afghan rebels in the 1980s, according to informed U.S. sources.The extraordinary sum -- more than five times the last allocation for the covert Stinger buyback program -- was sought by the Clinton administration from contingency funds because of fierce competition for the prized missiles on the international black market, according to knowledgeable sources.

By From the archives of the Historical Society of Carroll County | October 1, 1995

At the September meeting of the board of education of Carroll County, the board approved staying with its present policy that smoking areas for pupils not be provided and that smoking by pupils on school premises be prohibited. -- Community Reporter, Sept. 25, 1970.50 years agoAfter four flourishing years, the bottom finally has dropped out of the black markets with a refreshing thud. And war-fattened marketeers are scrambling desperately to get rid of their once precious stockpiles of nylon, shoes, piece goods and silks at deflated prices.

Design is important to Lisa Reed. The 35-year-old Hampden resident has made it her career as an architect at Cho Benn Holback + Associates. The shape of something is also important when it comes to her personal style. When we "Glimpsed" Reed at Everyman Theatre's gala at the American Visionary Art Museum, she explained her style philosophy: "As long as I have on one nice thing, I can cheapen everything else up and be a little more trendy. But I like to keep one classic piece in the mix."

K irstie Durr says she doesn't have one particular look. "I have some conservative pieces. I have some crazy pieces. I've got pieces that are more trendy, " the senior vice president at Nevins & Associates said. What's important to this 39-year-old Fallston resident is adding a little zing to each outfit. When we Glimpsed Durr at Martin's Valley Mansion for the American Heart Association's Heart Ball, her outfit had plenty of zing while adhering to the party's red theme. The look: Red satin Maggy London banded cocktail dress with bow and asymmetrical neckline.

It wasn't clear what freaked Jerrell Ellerbe out more: when I read him his mother's maiden name, or the part when I told him his date of birth. I'm guessing, though, that what disturbed him most was when I supplied his e-mail address and then read his complete Social Security number to him. "Who are you again?" the 25-year-old data entry specialist said, clearly shaken. "Tell me who you are again?" If I were someone with wicked intentions, I might have shaken him down for money. Or heck, not call him at all and just taken his data on a shopping spree.

WASHINGTON - Four years after Abdul Qadeer Khan, the leader of the world's largest atomic black market, was put under house arrest and his operation declared over, international inspectors and Western officials were confronting a new mystery left by him, this time over who might have received blueprints for a sophisticated and compact nuclear weapon found on his network's computers. Working in secret for two years, investigators have tracked the digitized blueprints to Khan computers in Switzerland, Dubai, Malaysia and Thailand.

By David Zurawik and Sam Sessa and David Zurawik and Sam Sessa,Sun reporters | October 18, 2006

In a season when new technology is drastically changing the ways in which television networks try to reach viewers, The Wire, HBO's Baltimore-based drama, has found a new and avid audience in East Coast nightclubs and on online auction sites such as eBay and Craigslist. There is, however, one problem with the gain: These new viewers are watching bootleg DVDs or illegal downloads of the entire season, often sold at a fraction of what it would cost to subscribe to HBO or buy a DVD of a full season of the Peabody Award-winning drama.

The White House Inc., which has grown into a 33-store chain by selling women's clothes of cream, ivory, oatmeal, chalk and other pale hues, is tipping its hat to the other end of the shade spectrum.The Linthicum-based company opened a store last weekend in Del Mar, Calif., that sells only garments and accessories that are black, gray or somewhere in between. A second Black Market boutique will open in Miami next month, giving the company 35 stores.The White House hasn't abandoned white. President Rick Sarmiento believes the country can support as many as 150 White House stores eventually.

Driven by a lucrative black market trade, thieves have snatched more than three dozen air bags from vehicles in Howard and Montgomery counties since early September. Howard police said yesterday that 27 vehicles have had at least one air bag stolen since early September. Montgomery police said that thieves stole air bags from 14 vehicles during a two-week spree early last month. Air bag thefts, which have increased nationwide since the early 1990s by some estimates, have triggered concerns among consumer advocates, who blame faulty or fraudulent air bags for motorists' injuries.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - In the weeks after Baghdad fell in April 2003, looters systematically dismantled and removed tons of machinery from Saddam Hussein's most important weapons installations, including some with high-precision equipment capable of making parts for nuclear arms, a senior Iraqi official said last week in the government's first extensive comments on the looting. The Iraqi official, Dr. Sami al-Araji, the deputy minister of industry, said it appeared that a highly organized operation had pinpointed specific plants looking for valuable equipment, some of which could be used for both military and civilian applications, and carted the machinery away.

Driven by a lucrative black market trade, thieves have snatched more than three dozen air bags from vehicles in Howard and Montgomery counties since early September. Howard police said yesterday that 27 vehicles have had at least one air bag stolen since early September. Montgomery police said that thieves stole air bags from 14 vehicles during a two-week spree early last month. Air bag thefts, which have increased nationwide since the early 1990s by some estimates, have triggered concerns among consumer advocates, who blame faulty or fraudulent air bags for motorists' injuries.